To live that day

Vent

2012-01-26T00:37:00.001-08:00

Since this is my little corner for giving vent to myfeelings, I am just saying now that I am so stressed, pressured and preoccupied.

Nothing more wishful than friendly breeze blowing from somewhere… anywhere.

Dream (January,19 2012)

2012-01-22T03:55:00.000-08:00

I participated in a demonstration in the street andthe situation turned chaotic. I ran away in the direction of my parents’ home,but I changed my mind and preferred to go back to my house instead. But then Ifelt I missed my parents so much that I had to pay them a visit. Their housewas in a multi-story building. I started going down the stairs instead of goingup. I found the entrance of some floor messy and a lot of works were going on.A modest family who lived there came out to receive me in the long, narrow and unfinishedhallway. I continued to go down and found another apartment in a bettercondition. Three persons welcomed me there and they were an old Americancouple and their female friend. I went down again and reached my parents’apartment. The entrance was tidy and clean but looked old. So many lanterns wereturned on. I saw my mother arranging something and preferred to keep silent andunnoticed until she finished. Without being able to recognize her face I huggedher. I was overwhelmed by her warmth and tenderness. I felt happy. So happy.

2012, Love Me Please

2012-01-09T02:34:00.001-08:00

Apart from the common wishes for good health and happinessat the head of every new year. 2012 is going to be a landmark nationally aswell as personally. A lot of expectations and unanswered questions shroud theyear. No amount of speculation or guess can ease the mind, so I have no choicebut to wait and see how this year will treat me/us. I only hope it will love meenough.

The Different Color of 2011

2011-12-27T03:33:00.000-08:00

Young men and women protested, got beaten, dragged onthe asphalt and some lost their lives for a noble cause. Their will anddetermination were never broken though. Hundreds of brave names more than ourlittle minds can remember or bear to remember.

They brushed 2011 with a different color. A verydifferent and bright color, regardless how the background of the picture is/wasdim, unfair and ugly. We owe them everything and they owe nobody nothing, andno amount of talk or eloquence can do them justice.

Ahmed Harara,

Words stand ashamed if I try to express our gratitude,appreciation and admiration. A hero at the moment when the faith in heroes wasalmost lost.

Dream (December,16 2011)

2011-12-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

The place looked like my parents’ old house but morespacious. Members of family and guests sat and chatted together when I noticedthat my close friend’s estranged wife was there. I wondered how she dared tocome and who invited her. A new guest walked up the stairs and she rushed tomeet him to find out later that he was not the person she expected. The newguest was a young man in his early thirties, white skinned, short haired andtall. Moments later another guest arrived and it was whom the estranged wife expected.He was in his late thirties with long black hair, and wearing a t-shirtrevealing his tattooed arms. I said to myself he was not the type I expectedhim to be. The tattooed man was followed by an elegant blonde young woman. He,she and the estranged wife talked together and the latter seemed quite happy talkingto the guy. Then I noticed she also had a tattoo and I thought maybe she triedto match up to him.

Someday Crossed My Path

2011-12-14T11:09:00.000-08:00

A tall thin guy with a long Ron Wood-like hairstyle looked me in the eyes and asked "This is class 1, isn’t it". I said "Yes". "And you are in it, right?" I said "Yes". He got his back bag off and placed it on the desk and sat down a bit far from me. My friend sitting on my left side whispered "***k". I asked "Why? What is wrong?". "Why have you answered him that politely? He is mocking you. He knows it is class 1 and just wanted to play around". I said "I did not see it like that". But then in a second thought I did not exclude that the tall guy, known later as H, decided I looked mockable enough to act the way my friend explained. We were in the very first days of our freshman year in the university.

Along the university years nothing linked H and I together. We were in two different groups of friends. It was later and during the first stage of the military service that we found each other within the same circle of conscripts who felt the need to get together in the new military environment. In a strange world, thin similarities overshadowed differences.

Cynicism and sarcasm were quite felt in H’s character. The bony white face, that resembled a mummy, was not strange to the cold attitudes he sometimes took in different situations. His character’s other features included solid disbelief in god, hate for his country, a definite desire to migrate to the USA, and taking calculated sharp reactions. I could see him, in a cinematic scene, walking the street, getting out a knife from his pocket, stabbing an enemy while cursing in a low voice, calmly hiding the knife back, spitting on the ground and then walking away.

In that incident when we were first stopped by the guard, H seized an opportunity in a nanosecond to just walk away before the guard realized his disappearance. He risked being arrested for running away without much thought. Ironically the guard later feared of being questioned for H’s disappearance and preferred not to mention it during the investigation.

Last thing I heard about him was that he inherited a good size of fortune after his father’s death, and got married to a nightclub singer, which came a little bit unexpected given his conservative family background. But did he leave for the States as he adamantly wanted? I did not know and I did not seek seriously to know, but he remained one of the persons who crossed my path someday and reserved a place in the memory.

When It Comes....

2011-12-04T03:51:00.000-08:00

* My sister looks and sounds more and more like our late mother. I have been told lately that I look now more like my father. A sign of growing old as Marquez put it.

* 2o11 was splendid. Unrest reigned in the three overlapping personal, professional and national circles.

* Sometimes I feel nostalgic to my old blog. The supposed persona behind it was different, popularity was higher and language was native. I gunned it down 3 years ago but kept the body in the morgue. Every few months I feel like reading the old posts which seem to me now as if they were written by someone else. Surprisingly new comments were still posted until last week.

* Heavy winter clothes fill my cupboard. I like the elegance of winter clothes whose different pieces allow matching colors and styles, unlike my summer clothes which are usually reduced to a t-shirt and jeans.

* I wrote a comment in some blog lately and found out it was deleted by the blogger. This happened before in another blog. It is strange that some bloggers, who seem or pretend to be broad-minded and cool, get hurt by a polite harmless different point of view or offended by an unfunny comment (mistaken by its writer for being funny though!).

* Courteous, shy, soft-spoken, quiet and level-headed. He does not fake any of these qualities. He is also blessed with easy-to-the-eye face features that pack the deal. What do very few close people know though is that he is also alcoholic and regular cheater. Those who happen to find out the other side of his character, get obviously shocked. Even I, despite our long history of friendship, still get intrigued by the sharp contrast between the mister and the doctor in his character. Interesting that he is mainly and severely judged by the others for the misconception people have about him more than anything else.

Saffron-Stained Tablecloth

2011-11-27T11:47:00.000-08:00

We almost said it. No, we did not really say it because the waiter interrupted the moment inquiring "chicken?” We both said "Here". He then put the pasta in front of me. A ghost of awkward silence sat with us at the table, but we tried to ignore him by resorting to the food. "Delicious?" I was asked. "Yes, and your chicken?” In a nice gesture, a piece of chicken was placed in my plate for a taste, but during the journey a drop of the saffron sauce fell on the white tablecloth in the space between our two plates.

Very few tables were occupied. Vague rumble came from far off. "Are there demonstrations today?”. I nodded. Although the question was clearly meant to only fill the gap of silence, my mind could not resist picturing the sweaty human bodies' wall in the misty square. I felt an imprisoned butterfly flapping in my stomach.

By then it was apparent that every attempt to avoid reaching the moment that we felt bound to go to, was useless. I let a sigh out. The saffron stain attracted my attention again. It looked like the sun in children paintings. Round, yellow, flat and lifeless.

I finally said "Well, we have to admit we can not get around it anymore, don't you think?” Few seconds passed without a reply before I heard "Did you enjoy the meal?" and the dark slim waiter with the wide fake smile started to clear the half-empty dishes off the table.

Thousands of Afternoons Ago III

2011-11-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

“And for the meals, they are served at the hospital cafeteria. Here are the free coupons. You can catch dinner tonight before it is closed by 8 o’clock” the lady said.

It was still 5’oclock, so I decided to take a walk before heading for the cafeteria. The streets were quiet and empty. I wondered how I could spend two months in this provincial dead city. The hospital was on a hilly road on the outskirts of the city. I could not spot the exact location and looked around to see if there were any passers by I can ask for help. I continued to walk until I found a chubby middle-aged man. In his fast way of talking I could recognize the words “river”, “footbridge” and “hill”, so I guessed I understood.

The cafeteria hall was spacious and plain. Most diners have had already left. I looked at the plate in my tray with discontent when the dark man sitting in front of me whispered the-end-of-meal pray to himself. A compatriot!
He told me he was a member of a group of school teachers attending a summer training course, and invited me to go with him after dinner to see the whole group.

In the large Spanish garden of the hotel the teachers were sitting, chatting, laughing and drinking tea. Men and women from different backgrounds. They made a lot of noise like pupils in their playtime. I thought how disturbed the rest of the residents must have been.

Two teachers entered the garden running after each other and laughing. It turned out that he snatched something from her and she was trying to get it back. It was very clear that she seized every opportunity, under any excuse, to touch the guy’s body. Chest, shoulders, back, neck. They finally joined the sitting group for awhile before the woman left. Someone hinted at her forcing touches and the others laughed. It was mentioned that the guy was in his late 20s and she was early 40s. I could not believe it because I would have easily assumed the opposite.

It got finally dark after the long summer day and some of the teachers started to retire to their rooms. I bid them farewell promising to pay another visit.

On my way back I had to walk along the main public park in the city and I could see ghosts of men moving between the trees.

I had the key of the front door of my hotel. A hanging bell rang when I opened it. Lights in the tiny lobby were dim and no one was at the reception. A girl appeared in the hallway to inform me they have changed my room from the third floor to the first floor and added they have already moved my stuff to the new room. She gave me the key and left.
I wondered about my dirty clothes that were piled on the floor of the bathroom and who could have picked them up.

I entered the room, looked around and did not know if I should get upset that they moved my belongings without my knowledge or not. I sat on the edge of the bed without turning the lights on. A big window was sending in rays of light from outside. I suddenly remembered my hometown and my parents, and overwhelming nostalgia, for everything and everyone who was far away, took me over.

But then bit by bit I regained my sense of the moment as I started to overhear unrecognizable voices coming from the adjacent room and a regular escalating sound of bed squeaking.

Late October Breeze

2011-10-31T02:50:00.000-07:00

Bonbon Menthe

2011-10-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

We met the year Patricia Kaas said about the mint candy’s taste “Ca fait du bien quand il pleut”. It is interesting how it is not infrequent that first impressions differ from the way we, after close encounter, see those who are around us. This is why I always try to alienate my first impressions.

One year later, we had to go back our homes in two different corners of the world. We exchanged letters once or twice before we briefly met again in 1995.

Life took me up and down, different countries became temporary homes of mine, hearts meant the world to me but then disappeared, bodies buried, babies’ first cries were heard, and grey hairs became bolder and bolder.

Last week, a stranger knocked on my door. She said she was an expatriate and a friend of a friend of my old friend. He was looking for me from his remote colorful country, but he only had my street address. She went to the address and found out that the house was demolished and neighbors did not know my location. She asked again and a daughter of a security guard in a close building gave her another address. She went there and found nothing. She returned back again to the site of the demolished house until someone gave her a right new address. And there she was at my door telling me that my old friend was looking for me.

Heart warming.

Outlived and Remembered

2011-09-28T05:33:00.000-07:00

We thought it was fun although we looked a bit odd. Two males and the others were females. In our late 20s and they were barely adults. Foreigners but the girls were nationals. Besides, each one held an umbrella, but we both held one umbrella. We took our places in the queue though. Rain and curious looks did not want to stop.

I wondered few times before about those men and women who sat individually, in silence, on chairs in the empty streets of downtown at night. A small table was usually set in front of him/her on which a lonely lamp sent out a weak light. I could not understand then what they were supposed to do.

I was with my friend standing in line next to the one who seemed, judging by the long queue, the most popular. We also choose him because of the bilingual sign set on his table.

The shops were closed and the street did not have restaurants or cafes, so everything was dead.

The line moved slowly and when we became the first in line there was some distance, effective enough to keep the revealing stream of the unknown unheard, separating us from the forty something man with the untidy beard and moustache. I let my friend goes first. Less than 10 minutes later came my turn.

“Did he tell you something?” my friend asked me when we hurried to the subway station. “I am not quite sure” I added “He said when I reach 38 years old, a big change will occur in my life”. “Let us run, I hear the sound of the train coming” he said.

Knack of Existing

2011-09-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

“I wanted the knack of existing. I did not know the rules”

These words were said by the main character in Jennifer Dawson's novel The Ha Ha.
I think it is about time to re-read this novel for maybe the fourth or fifth time. Every few years I do, and the novel never failed to have its effect on me or to lessen the compassion I feel for the main character. It s not the same sort of compassion I felt when I, in a tender age, read classics like "Tess" or "Resurrection". It is different. More conscious? Maybe.

Another re-reading I do these days, almost because it reminds me of the old days when I did the first reading, is Emile Zola's "Une page d'Amour". A Parisian bookstore in Boulevard St. Michel had its August knock-off prices taking old classics and used books out on the sidewalk for sale. I found the novel that I once stumbled on in my father's library and read long time ago. I did not know back then it was a part of series of novels.

It might not be the sort of novel I like to read these days anymore, but a classic is a classic ,never dies or loses its charm. I started to re-read it this week and I enjoy it now as I did in the past. Days in that past were simple and joyful. Or maybe this is how every “old days” are remembered.

....

2011-09-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

* Norfolk Island Pine is the majestic tree I meant in my Nightstand post.

* First weekend in September was the last weekend of my long summer vacation. I spent the week-end near the sea. Nice weather although there was no trace of that end-of-summer breeze. I love it when the very first discreet chill is felt in the air after a long hot summer.

* I was scammed out of 150 $. The scheme involved calls on my mobile phone claiming they were from the mobile telecom. company. Without undermining my foolishness, the caller really mastered his role. 150$ is no big deal but the feeling itself that I was fooled is warming my heart!

* Last month I met an old friend whom I haven’t seen for almost 11 years. A good sign of any friendship is the lack of even this very thin shadow of reservation that comes naturally with the long absence.

Days of Room 812

2011-09-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Last month and for the first time after many years I revisited the university hostel in which I lived for 2 years when I was a student. The main tree-lined street brought back vivid memories. Everything looked the same as I last laid my eyes on, except a new metro line that was recently constructed in the middle of the street.

Inside the hostel I had the same feeling I used to have whenever I visited my parents’ house after long absence. Everything looked significantly smaller than what was left of it in my memory. At my parents’ house I asked myself why my room looked smaller, the hallway dimmer, the living room less spacious? And in the hostel I also felt that roads between dormitories became narrower, buildings shorter and the green areas more limited.

I never understood why my mind keeps a bigger/brighter-than-reality visual memory of places.

This is different from the visual perception we preserved from childhood of the sizes of objects. When I was a child my parents’ closet looked huge, and my sister and I could easily hide in it. Their king size bed stood like a playground where we rolled over from one edge to another. But as our bodies grew bigger, the closet and the bed grew smaller.

In my visit to the hostel, all memories came up. My tiny but back-then freshly renovated room on the eighth floor, my circle of friends, the up and down states of mood, and the different languages and faces around. Ah… I still can also recall a pale picture of a skinny shy person who once resembled me.

Nightstand

2011-07-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

Wallet
It contains money, credit card, ID card and photos of some of whom I love.
It became worn out and I should buy a new one but the intimacy that develops between us and our old exhausted belongings does not fade easily.

Glasses
I hate them. Or precisely I hate how I look when I have to wear them. Contact lenses are more welcomed.

Pic
It was taken about 3 years ago. No major change except the disappearance of the goatee. If we have the right to like self pictures, then I like this one although my side view is not always the most flattering. It was not me who put it under the glass top. My narcissist level is not that high...yet!

Vase
In July I spent a long weekend with a good friend in his Mediterranean waterfront home. Fantastic view. A huge tree in the garden had these stick-like leaves. I collected the fallen dry ones and immediately felt they would look nice in a vase. At the beginning they were holding themselves tight and upward but day after day they started to bend down.

Lamp
I bought it from a friend years ago. He was selling many of his home items before he moved far away. We see each other now once every few years. The last time was around 3 months ago. Reliable, talented and handsome. This is how I would describe him if I am allowed to commit the crime of summing someone up. A big interrogation mark shrouds his private life though. Is it fear of intimacy or lack of having trust in others?

Clock alarm
Divided into two parts. Clock and frame.

And there is a Plug joint that happened to be there when I took the pic.

What this shot of nightstand did not show was the big empty bed, the growling heat of July and my mind busy with the preparation for summer vacation that will start soon. Very soon.

Thousands of Afternoons Ago II

2011-07-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone I met in my first days in the school recommended me to see a student called N because she was a compatriot. She seemed, according to what I heard, quite popular among the students.

I was introduced to her later, and we clicked straight away. That was the beginning of a long friendship that lasted many years until we lost track of each other. N was a ball of energy, spontaneity and humor. A shock of black hair surrounded a long face distinguished for its big eyes. Whenever she was asked how she kept her figure slim despite her healthy appetite, she answered “Coffee, cigarettes and a 24 hours working brain”. She could never hide her emotions or their reflections on her face, as if her features were wired up directly to her heart. She just loved this or hated that for no apparent reason and I failed many times to understand the logic. I had eventually to give up understanding, admitting that she was the type of person who was led by her first impressions.

When friends thought what N and I had meant more than friendship, we just laughed and commented “Let them think what they like to think”.

After some time of our friendship, she revealed some tragic past, but frankly I could never know where borders between reality and imagination (if any) began or end in her story. The main storylines remained the same along the years, but I do not know why a cloud of disbelief, or precisely partial disbelief, always hanged over.

N introduced me to her close circle of 5 friends. Two girls and three guys. They were of different nationalities. I could not find the faintest ray of similarity among their characters. Gathering these different persons in one social group was somehow surrealist and fun. Or that what appeared to me.

When I realized that I started to go out regularly with them, and did not mind their divergence, I understood then how this group, in the first place, could get together!

The real fun part was when the students moved later from the small city to join their universities or institutions in Paris where life was much more colorful. Differences between “friends” got clearer. The group rapidly walked to its doomsday, and in a later episode after the doomsday interesting “secrets” got uncovered about hidden relationships, bad mouthing quotes and blushing confessions.

N witnessed the collapse of her group of friends as calmly as humans witness the change of seasons. By that time, she was forming a new group of friends in her university. A little more harmonious. I kept her friendship on a bilateral track only, as my own sphere was evolving gradually and far away. A sphere where faces I saw, characters I dealt with, and circumstances I went under helped to crystallize my ideas about friendship, love, life and above all about myself.

Dream (June, 26 2011)

2011-06-27T03:59:00.000-07:00

I carried a child and walked down a hilly road in the countryside. I turned back and saw a tall big man in his 30s wearing a black suit walking behind. He walked faster and passed us, and I noticed then the color of his suit from behind was different. I speeded up going down the hill and passed him. He again walked faster. Every time I saw him his suit changed into a different color. I felt afraid and thought he was not a human but a ghost. I decided to get away from him as far as I could by crossing the road and walking on the other side.

The child, whom I carried, was the son of a friend of mine. He was around 4 or 5 years old. I thought of how appreciative his family must be for the effort I exerted for their son.

I reached a no-car area in the town where barriers were held. I asked a guard about the location of the school. I entered the building and explained that I came to make sure that the child was registered although he would not be able to attend the classes at that day. Nobody seemed interested in what I was saying. The female staff said she was busy and asked me to wait. At last they gave me a number of name cards and asked if the name of the child was included. It was not. They asked me again to wait. I started to shout saying that I must meet the director to complain about their lack of interest and help. The employees were taken by surprise when I shouted but did not react enthusiastically enough to help.

Dream (June, 2 2011)

2011-06-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

I was in Japan and it was flooding everywhere. I tried to go somewhere, maybe home, but all the roads were filled with high water. I found a side road where the water only reached my knees, but then it rose again. I got almost drowned and could not breathe. I moved to another direction and there were scattered persons here and there trying to find a safe spot.

I saw a colleague who was also trying to find a dry area. We walked together and everything around us turned into water. Water, water, water. Immense blue water was everywhere. I said to myself what a miserable life those people were leading.

Tide or tsunami withdrew back in some areas and a dry highway appeared with cars moving fast on it. I felt a bit optimistic about going back to my desired destination, but floods came over again. I started to run on a road where, on one side, a cement wall was erected. I saw my colleague again and she, in black and long wet hair, was struggling not to get drowned. Then I saw her talking with someone and it looked as if they found a hole in the wall and tried to go through to reach a dry place. They disappeared and I assumed they went through that hole.

I ran close to the wall searching for the hole, but could not find it because wild grass and plants covered many parts of the wall. I found myself getting into a tunnel-like road and the ceiling was got lower and lower. I felt trapped with no place to go.

2011-06-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

.
.
.
Some things that fly there be --
Birds -- Hours -- the Bumblebee --
Of these no Elegy.

Some things that stay there be --
Grief -- Hills -- Eternity --
Nor this behooveth me.

There are that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the Riddle lies!

Emily Dickinson

House, Door and Window

2011-06-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Three pictures I took in 2010.

My old house, which I really miss, had this big window in the living room. Lush Oleander flowers used to passionately kiss the glass in the season.

A house door in the countryside. I liked the violet hearts which were atypical in the house doors in that area.

Lose something, gain another. But do we make the right choice? The window prevented, to some extent, the cruel heat from getting into the room in the old building, but it also kept rays of light away.

NYC, Shoplifting and Sexual Assault

2011-06-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

NYC in 1999.
I bought some items from Macy’s on 34th street. Two weeks later while I was preparing my luggage before my departure to where I was living, I found out that the security tag was still attached to one of the items. I was very surprised the detection system did not alert when I passed through the store gate.

I did not know if I paid for the item but the cashier forgot to remove the tag, or by some mistake she did not scan it but put it with the other bought pieces in the bag. I searched for the receipt but could not find it. Actually I was not keen to keep the receipt because I did not expect I would need it.

Until now I panic at the mere idea that I risked being arrested for shoplifting for no apparent fault of mine except for being too lazy to check the items in the receipt before leaving the store.

Eventually I did not go back to the store because I thought going back with a piece of clothe with its security tag and without a receipt would only suggest one scenario, and I did not like that scenario.
……

In a matter of 3 weeks there were two separate incidents in which two prominent banking figures (with different levels of prominence) have been accused of sexually assaulting a chamber maid in hotels in NYC.

I have a story in this regard.

In the early 90s I was in the starting stage of my career and we had a high ranking figure coming on a working visit. As a junior I was not involved in the visit, but I was once assigned to go to the hotel he stayed in and give him some documents he needed. I called him from the lobby and asked what to do with the envelope (It was not recommended to leave it at the front desk). He asked me to go up to his suite. The reputation of this person, whom I have never seen before, was bad and he was known for his arrogant and obnoxious character. He did not seem unpleasant when I met him though. I was standing in the living room and he asked me few questions about the work. Then he went inside the bedroom to change his clothe. While we were talking, he from the bedroom and I in the living room, he came out of the room, wearing only his slip, to clarify some point I mentioned in my talk. He stayed for like few minutes before going inside again to finish dressing. I actually found it a bit inappropriate, but it was a not big deal anyway.

I remember his authoritative tone when we spoke, and given his position that was understood. I also remember that at a certain point in the conversation he said to me something with this meaning “Are you usually that shy and polite or is it just because you are talking to me?”! I just smiled because I thought I had no valid answer.

The visit went well, and few weeks later, we heard about him being accused of sexually assaulting a chamber maid in a hotel in NYC. It was early 90s. The case did not go far although we heard there was strong evidence against him.

Dream (May, 25 2011)

2011-05-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine looked cheerful and younger with a head full of hair. It was a surprising youthful look. He told me he became an actor and asked if I would mind playing a role in his new movie. I thought a small silent appearance in a movie could be interesting and so I accepted the offer. The location was in a sea resort and I had to wear a swimming suit and appear like having a conversation with 3 persons, two females and my friend. Someone in the set complimented me on my muscular body. The whole atmosphere was pleasant and fun. The question which repeated in my mind was how my friend’s look unbelievably changed so that no one could think he was a father of 3 grown up girls.

Dream (April 2011)

2011-05-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

It was in an unfamiliar foreign land. I was going back home when I sensed that the road did not look as it used to do. I wondered if I took the wrong one. In front of me were a few houses in the middle of the sea. I realized then it was the right road but the floods drowned everything except these few houses. I saw another huge wave coming over. I got scared, turned back and started to run. I held my mobile and tried to call my family to check on them but I could not. I had no option but to run. To run with all my energy. I was too scared to even look back to see if the wave was still there chasing me or not.

Snow-Capped and Lonely

2011-04-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

The scenery of snow-capped mountains never fails to captivate me. The fascination does not stem from the fact I was born and raised in a country where snow-capped mountains are “almost” nonexistent, but the notion that far away up there, there is something so different, so pure and visible but yet unattainable like a dream, is what attract me most, particularly when the mountain or chain of mountains overlook a big city. The contrast between the supposed hustle of the city and the secluded white peaks is intriguing. Pictures of cities like Seattle, Vancouver or Santiago make me wish to visit someday although I know it is not a very realizable idea.

A mesmerizing sight was the peak of Mount Fuji in a half clear day when I was in a cable car in the city of Hakone. Someone yelled that Fuji was there. I could not see it and then realized I was looking in a much lower point on the horizon. I looked up and the proud peak was there, almost in the middle of the sky. Rare are the moments that do not get overshadowed by other moments. And that was one. At that phase of my life during which I visited Fuji, I was feeling lonely. Painfully lonely. So lonely that I once picked up the receiver of the silent phone hoping to catch anyone who might have the intention to call.

Not So Chanted April

2011-04-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

Temperature rises gradually and I have already started to miss the winter. Our mild winter. The slowly penetrating heat, longer daylights and the spring bloom add their flavor to the chaotic traffic, crowded streets and the newly born revolutionary spirit.

I commute most of the days from the office back home by taxi. The comments I hear sometimes from taxi drivers are why I look angry. I do not feel or look angry, but being serious is hopefully mistaken for looking angry where people, despite the suffering, are used to joke and smile.

Regular exercise at the gym, desperate attempt to finish “A Field of Scarlet Poppies” by Jennifer Dawson which I started lazily to read few months ago, and meeting friends over endless political discussion color my days of April.

Some photos of the tsunami echoed what I always see in my dreams. Floods, tsunami or just huge waves made regular recurring dreams. In these dreams, as panicked as I could be, running away was my only obsession. When I see the photos I recall the scary feeling I have in these dreams.

I am disappointed with a close friend because of his complete silence during recent critical circumstances I have passed through. I am not convinced with his excuses. I feel our friendship suddenly faces cold wind and I say is that it? The end of friendship comes that easily?

In a poem I read recently the poet said the more he tried to flee from his father's character/image/influence that was haunting him, the more he found himself behaving like his father. Do we release out, when we get older, what we stored from our parents' behavior by adopting the same behavior? In my case it seems yes.

I have been described as a rather pessimist person (here with the afore-mentioned seriousness we have a dangerous combination!). I do not disagree. But the tsunami of change in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt, fills me profusely with that thing with feathers. Huge feathers.

I am supposed to go visit my parents’ graves this Friday. I did it last time around five years ago. I wonder is this meaningful anymore? In the past and long before my parents passed away I always thought visiting the graves, in general, touched the soul, but now…..

Is buying a reproduced famous oil painting a sign of bad taste? I am tempted to do but something inside says no, no, no.

Many years ago April took my heart, put it in a blueish triangle shaped box and carried it to South America. It was returned back later in an unregistered mail. And April remained since so unchanted.

Dream (March 2011)

2011-04-05T02:00:00.000-07:00

I wanted to buy a second-hand linen-press. I went to the downtown and found a shop at the corner of the street. I climbed few stairs and entered the shop which was rather small and dim. I did not find what I was looking for but the owner told me to check the items in the storeroom. The storeroom was old but unexpectedly bright and very spacious, and I wondered how such big space was annexed to the small shop. I checked the linen-press items but they were all either broken or in bad condition. I felt embarrassed leaving without buying despite the owner’s help, so I told him I would look around somewhere else and come back again. I went out of the shop and walked down the street.

Bullet in Pillow

2011-03-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

“Now you know a secret of mine, why don’t you tell me one of yours?” she looked at me with her round smiley face and continued “You seem always reserved, I trust you but you do not put your trust in me”. I hummed and hawed, and tried to think of something that qualified as a secret to tell her but I failed. I cleared my throat and said I did not have secrets and my life was an open book. I did not know if I sounded convincing to her or not. I hoped I did. She added “I hope revealing my secret would not let you look down upon me”. I affirmed her I would not.

We were sitting, that evening, in an almost empty brasserie. Lights were dim and the two coffees on our table were half finished.

I felt for moments that it must have been heart warming to trust someone. That relaxing feeling of lying the head on a comfortable pillow and be ready to sleep. A clean-scented warm fuzzy pillow. But I also wondered if revealing her secrets to me reflected her inability to bear her burden alone more than her trust in me. Few days earlier she gave me a letter related to her secret and asked me to send it by fax for her because she did not want to take the risk by sending it from her home. She was not a cautious person, I thought. Was she right in putting her trust in me? She did not know that I copied the letter and kept it in my drawer before giving her back the original the following day. What was my motive in doing so? I really did not know but what I knew was that I should not have done it.

Fast forward to many years later and by the time I completely forgot about the letter I found the copy in an old dusty box of books and papers. I tore it up.

I wanted to get the conversation out of its serious mood so I asked her “Suppose I might have a secret, can you guess what it could be?” She looked amused and embarrassed for seconds and said “I do not know, tell me at least in which direction should I go and guess?” Every direction was open was my reply. She kept silent for few minutes, and sounded hesitant and a little embarrassed again when she said “I do not know”. She gazed at me, laughed nervously and repeated: I do not know.

Thousands of Afternoons Ago

2011-03-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

I was given the train ticket and told to be at Gare de Lyon at least 15 minutes before the train departure. The lady, who looked like Dalida, added that another student would take the same train heading also to the city of Vichy and we would have two adjacent seats.

The other student turned out to be an early forty man from Sri Lanka. One of his eyes was artificial or what we call a "glass eye". We communicated in English because he could not speak French well. Few minutes after the train started to leave, two loud arguing voices were heard. The louder sounded like angry African French female and the other was a calmer old female. It turned out that an old French lady did not like the noise caused by the African lady's children who occupied wrong seats next to her, and she asked the mother to behave her "monkeys". The whole fight/argument focused on using the word "monkey" which made the mother furious but I could not understand exactly how the old lady justified using the word. What surprised me most was the passivity of the passengers because similar situations in the Middle East would have attracted at least 2 or 3 persons to give their views or to support one party or another, but at the time I was not used yet to life in Europe.

We arrived Vichy and it was hot and the air was thick. We found a driver waiting to transfer us to the administrative building of the school. I paid farewell to my companion because from that point our routes were different. I went through the registration procedures, and at the end an energetic secretary gave me a map of the city and a paper on which she typed addresses of hotels, and asked me to search for a suitable residence. My class was scheduled to start the following day at 9.00 AM.

I left my suitcase at the office and went out with the map in one hand and the paper of addresses in the other. All the hotels were located within a walking distance. I started with a shabby hotel where the girl at the reception was wearing very short shorts and holding a cigarette in her hand. A few kids of hers, I assume, were running around. Nothing seemed appealing, neither the hotel nor the room but I wanted to feel settled down as quickly as possible, so I checked in immediately and went back to get my suitcase. In a matter of hour I was in my room, lying in bed. The big window was open to a calm courtyard and the heat started to cool down a little bit in the afternoon. I could hear the radio from afar and Laura Branigan singing Coming Into My Life.

At that moment I felt my stay of one month in Vichy would be long and boring. Very long and boring

In the Army Then (4)

2011-02-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

After the training stage I was assigned, in a big base, to work in an administrative post. This was an interesting and rather relaxed period. It felt more like a civil job. We were around 7 recruits in the same office.

M was my best friend. Genuine, rather naïve and funny. He would just say a comment that made everyone crack up and look clueless why the uproar was. He was the only one I kept contact with for years later until we left home, lived in different countries and lost the track of each other.

G was the guy carrying much baggage. We were close but I could not figure out what precisely was behind him. Troubled family? abusive father? Women and sex occupied a big space of his thoughts. It happened that I met him accidentally 10 years after we last saw each other, but he did not recognize me. In order to refresh up his memory, I asked him who his closest friends in the army were. He mentioned two names including mine, but could not attach the old name with the new face. Interesting, but that in fact said more about me than him!

E whom I first found pleasant and easy going turned out later, through some situations with G, to be childish and unreliable. Until the last day of our service I kept a friendly buffer zone between us. I couldn’t/can’t cope with unpredictable persons. E was thin, tall with a typical nerdy look.

T was interesting. A muscular bulky guy with rough features and kind heart who came from a struggling family. He got engaged and used to tell us every morning the details of his conversations (and sometimes intimate moments) with his fiancée. T had an aunt who was a D-list actress whom he was so proud of. Most of us had to shake our memories hard to remember her roles. I posted about T before here.

M2 liked to describe himself as a thug. A fear nothing/care nothing guy. He always said: “Do not see me now in uniform and short hair, this is not my real look”. He definitely was not a shy person and used to boast about his adventures with women, but that did not prevent him from telling us, a group of supposedly heterosexual guys, how he was once cruised in the street by a famous show business man, and explaining in details that eventually he did not mind giving the guy a pity f***.

H was decent and level headed. He would shave his beard and two hours later it would look 24 hours old. Thick beard and sensitive skin caused the inflammatory face. The news suddenly spread out that he got engaged to a female staffer (officer). We were surprised because for more than a year they did not show any kind of special relationship. The last I heard of him they got married and had a child.

I wonder, while writing this post, how do they remember me now? And how their thoughts would match what I thought of myself back then.

O sister 2011

2011-02-20T04:30:00.000-08:00

Only two months elapsed but huge events occurred on national and personal levels. Ending dictatorship, unexpected turning point in career and a tragic change in a close friend’s life. I wonder what 2011 hides more?

Dream (February,18 2011)

2011-02-18T02:01:00.000-08:00

A blurry faced figure/friend and I decided we had to uncover the crimes committed by a young female. We thought that at a certain hour in the middle of the night we would make a list of her crimes in two languages and attache it to a mug shot. I felt confused and uneasy. At the fixed time I/we prepared the list and the difficult task was to take the mug shot. The accused resisted me/us and I had to drag her by hair. It turned violent but I almost overcame her.

Straight Pass of Suffering

2011-02-18T01:07:00.000-08:00

Through the straight pass of suffering
The martyrs even trod,
Their feet upon temptation,
Their faces upon God.

A stately, shriven company;
Convulsion playing round,
Harmless as streaks of meteor
Upon a plant’s bound.

Their faith the everlasting troth;
Their expectation fair;
The needle to the north degree
Wades so, through polar air.

Emily Dickinson

February 11, 2011

2011-02-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

Freedom from space and also freedom from time
Freedom from attachment and freedom from crime
Freedom to work and freedom to play
Freedom to believe and freedom to pray.
Freedom to experience a rebirth someday.

George Krokos

In the Army Then (3)

2011-01-24T01:44:00.000-08:00

One week after I joined the army, we were ordered to move to the training camp. It was in a remote arid area in the desert where we could smell the iodine scented breeze coming from the east as the sea was less than 10 km far. A chain of high rocky mountains stood on the western horizon. North and south were open. It was January, so weather was quite cold in early mornings and late nights, but a bit chilly the rest of the day. The camp was composed of few scattered one floor buildings of dusty yellowish colour, and three or four lean trees made the only visible green. There was nothing else except discipline, new faces, shaved heads and hours of hard training.

Besides positive and negative sides of the military life, being alone in many afternoons when I could go to a reclusive spot in the camp and sit down in complete silence looking at the endless sand and mountains was a tremendous joy. I once found a white tiny wild flower standing alone and was amazed how it could come up off the direness and survive the soldiers’ smashing boots. A lame poem was composed back then and echoed these thoughts.

No real friendships were developed in that stage, contrary to the later-on stages of my military service. Maybe the hardships of the beginning did not allow us to seek real communication. Even fights were rare in the beginning. Everyone seemed busy with himself and with coping with the new life. Only the camaraderie ruled through funny times and somber moments. We almost belonged to different everything; education, regions and social background.

After the dinner by 8 pm, a long walk from the mess to our dorm, which was located in a far point in the camp, was the sign of the end of a hard long day.

Two persons are still in my memory from these days. B with his sharp features, big eyes and hot temper. He would never let anyone’s bad manners pass without a reaction or at least a comment. And little N whom I knew before very casually but one day, for no reason that I knew, became very mean to me in public. The following day he came and apologized to me in public too. I never understood why the meanness was in the first place. I remember both of them sometimes and wonder where life might have taken them.

In 2010

2011-01-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

I witnessed Karma working in all its glory. It was the first time to see, with my own eyes, an evil person got punished for what he did. That restored, somehow, my lost feeling of the fairness in the world.

Two compatriots met on a foreign soil. It led to a mutual feeling that would have never existed if they were back home, but home sickness and lonliness made the impossible happen.

Wonderlful job, high pay and beautiful house did not prevent Y from being miserable. Very miserable. He would not trade off, though, what he had for what he had not.

Dream (December,19 2010)

2010-12-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

I was in a crowded park when we were ordered to clear the way to a group of people to perform what seemed to be dances. They looked elegant and classy, and were joined later by a second group. I wondered who these people were and what authority they had so the park turned like their own property. I then realized that they were not dancing but practicing religious rites. I noticed one among them carrying a book on which "Baha'i" was written. Then they became completely nude talking, socializing and sitting in positions revealing their private parts. I thought that nudism was against the park rules and wondered why there was no objection from the park guards.

Stain

2010-12-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

I: I stumbled over the stairs and hit my arm.

Mother: The teacher should have noticed the blood stain.

I: It is messy in the class.

Mother: And how is it going there? Are you having good friends now?

I: Yes Mama. They are very nice chaps. We play together. We think of going riding bikes in the park some afternoon.

Mother: When exactly?

I: I do not know, but we agreed to.

Mother: Good. I want you to get out of your shell. Anyone special among your friends now?

I: They are all nice and dear to me.

Mother: And the boy who beat you up last month. Any news about him?

I: He came and apologized few days ago. He is a nice fellow now.

Mother: So I do not need to go and meet your teacher.

I: No Mama. Please do not. They are very kind to me now.

Mother: But he should have noticed the blood stain.

I: I thought it was a minor wound. It is ok there Mama. They are nice chaps. Please, you do not need to go

Coffee Grounds

2010-11-22T05:04:00.000-08:00

"Miles of wild despair lay between you and the place you want to be". Said the wise old man staring at me. I wondered "Should I give up?"."Not necessarily, but mind you it all depends on how eager you are to be there". "I am very eager" I assured him. "Then you should not stop. Try, but I guarantee you nothing".

He gazed again in my cup of Turkish coffee, trying to figure out how the shapes formed by the coffee grounds would reveal more. I waited, desperate and anxious. He turned the cup around and without getting his eyes off it asked "M N L, do these three letters mean something special to you?" I tried hard to guess any possible meaning these letters might give, but I failed. He added "Run as if beasts are chasing you if you see these letters together. If not, you will find yourself left alone in a dry wind-swept land". My heart sank and my world seemed narrow and cruel. Should I always fight the demons alone? Is there no shelter from that fate? I felt overwhelmed by a huge dark wave where faces of my late father, mother and distant relatives appeared and vanished for no reason. Some faces seemed friendly and others looked sarcastic. The wave finally pushed me to the shore exhausted, fragile and full of holes.

I went out of the coffee reader's house to the dark empty street. The November cool wind welcomed me. I stopped a moment, adjusted the scarf around my neck, looked left and right and started to walk back home. Nothing felt of more worth then than going back home.

Talking, Traveling and Observing a Turtle

2010-11-18T02:26:00.000-08:00

Two simple conversations in two consecutive days.

Friend 1: Couple X has a wonderful mansion in the U. S. I visited them there last year.
I: Really? I did not know they owned a house back there. I heard about their huge house here.
Friend 1: I saw it too. Unbelievably lavish.
I: This is the sort of life I like to lead!
Friend 1: But do you know that their only son is autistic?
I (compassionately): No. I did not know that. Goodness, all their life means nothing to me now.

The following day.
I: Do you know that couple X has a mansion in the States and a wonderful house here.
Friend 2: Wow. Nice.
I: But I have also just got to know that their child is autistic.
Friend 2 (instantly): They are fortunate. There are undoubtedly many poor couples who have autistic sons too.

........

I visited Yemen for the first time last week. A troubled country that became (again) under spotlight after the incidents of the trapped parcels.

Much is being said about Yemen. Terror, failed regime, internal conflicts that might lead to separation, amazing traditional architecture and the kind people. But what amazed me most was how qat/khat chewing, which is deeply rooted and completely accepted in the society, went beyond the definition of a habit to become a collective activity that involved gathering, socialization, current affairs' discussion and sometimes decision making.

It was somehow surrealist to see, starting from 3 or 4 PM, almost every male adult (and some teenagers) in the streets, shops, taxis having like a bubble in one side of his mouth because it was "the time". Women, according to what I have heard, were also active except that we could not see their swollen cheeks under the veil.
By the end of my short visit I felt what I saw crossed the amazing borders to the depressing ones.

........

I bought a turtle 2 weeks ago. I have never seen a turtle walking that fast. She never stops moving in the house the whole day. A stereotype- shattering turtle. I love her!

Dream (October, 28 2010)

2010-11-06T23:16:00.000-07:00

My sister, my late father and I were in a kitchen of some house. My sister was looking for a bottle of milk to pour some for her daughter and she finally found it in the fridge. The bottle was huge, brown and dusty. I warned her that the expiry date was in 2008, but she did not care, saying that the milk looked fine.

I left the kitchen dissatisfied when rain drops started to come down through the ceiling of the rooms in the house, taking off the colour of the painting of the walls. But when I opened a closed door, I found a dry, bright and untidy living room. I shouted at my sister and father to come stay with me. Only father came wearing his underwear (white t-shirt and white knee length boxer) and holding a newspaper in his hand. He entered the room and immediately lied on his back. I asked him: Papa, can I give you a hug? His face started to look lifeless and pale that I wondered if he was still alive. I repeated the question when I noticed his lips slowly moving and I could barely hear him saying: Yes son, you can. I hold his head in my hands and then his head turned to a skull. I screamed and waked up.

Home, Sweet and Sour Home

2010-10-25T01:37:00.000-07:00

F is an old close friend whom I have not seen or heard of for about 14 years.I received a phone call last week and immediately recognized the husky voice. We caught up with the main events in our lives along these years. It was a moment from the past to exchange news with an old friend through a telephone call. No e-mails, no cyber social networks, just the good old way.

He was a very good friend for few years. To say an unforgettable character is an understatement. Spontaneous, genuine and so aggressive and so fragile at the same time. I still remember one day in a busy street at the business district in a foreign city, where we were both expatriates working in two different fields, when F began crying, even sobbing, in an emotional moment before he left to the airport. His stay in that country came to an end and he could not restrain his tears. There we were two grown up men in the middle of the street, one cried and the other tried to comfort. A picture shattering the cliché of Middle Eastern men! I still also remember my feelings at that moment. A mixture of helplessness (regarding the situation), embarrassment (at being the target of the staring passers) and compassion (with him. Some moments might not bear special significance in our lives, but we can not forget though. That was one of these moments.

After his first call, F called me again few days later to invite me for a dinner with our old group of friends. I have not seen some of them for more than 15 years. And some of them have not seen each other for a quite long time too. I was caught by the moment and accepted the invitation. But after I hang up I felt the idea was rather ridiculous. What could link 7 or 8 persons who once, long time ago, were good friends? Only the memories. Besides, one or two among the group I would not be thrilled to renew the contacts with for some reasons. Outdated reasons, but who ever said that being outdated weakened validity? I called F later to apologize but he insisted. He said that some of the friends accepted the invitation only when they knew I would be there. I did not believe him. I thought he lied to convince me to come but his lie worked anyway.

I was the first to arrive at the not so crowded restaurant. Then they started to arrive. I shook hands with someone whom I would have never recognized if we have met face to face accidentally. He complimented me on my unchanged look, and I found I had nothing to say but to lie and compliment him on his look too. He might have just started a lie and I ended it. We were 10 persons. I sat next to F at the head of the table thinking that that position would guarantee me the minimum interaction with the others. And I was right.

Faces changed. Attitudes remained the same. Compliments were exchanged. Questions and answers, well rehearsed, were raised and delivered in flat voices. By the end of the dinner some suggested another meeting. I smiled and said inshalla.
On my way back I looked at the chaotic busy streets and thought that nothing drastically changed in my home town, but nothing nonetheless remained the same. I think, in the eyes of the old friends, this same remark also applied to me. The basic "me" is there except some white hairs, hint of wrinkles, a shorter temper sometimes and a more apparent lack of interest other times.

Circa 1986

2010-10-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

My mother's daily listening to the 5 pm radio news followed by drama episodes from her red transistor radio.

Father reading the newspaper in the terrace overlooking the street, and tips of yellow Bougainvillea flowers touching the railing.

My calm tidy bedroom. Semi dark with its white light curtains half drawn.

The always sunny kitchen in the afternoon. Its two square windows with security bars faced the west.

A huge mango tree in the garden with the high monotonous sounds of swallows by sunset.

Piles of British novels, anthologies and drama on my desk.

The Polish family neighbors on the right side and the continuous shouting of the mother at her 3 year old son: Sebastian!

Our neighbor on the right side exposing himself quite often in his room with the windows open.

Watching Dallas.

Silent calm afternoons when parents used to have siesta and sun heat started to fade.

Long evening talks with mama whenever we sat together in the terrace. She was mostly talking about her memories before getting married, her beloved deceased father and her cold mother.

Noise coming from our neighbors' house late night. I always thought husband and wife were fighting and she was crying, but my mother seemed to know better.

The audible trains' whistle by midnight despite the far distance between our house and the train station.

Lonely evenings.

A random exchange of books with an acquaintance introduced me to who became my very favorite poet for years to come.

Future seemed then, as usual, too far and vague to predict.

Scenes From Recent Dreams

2010-09-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

My house was filled with water and I had to swim from one room to another.

A bowl, a big white bowl, got broken and fell down on the floor without spreading out, but the broken pieces fell down almost on top of each other.

I was sleeping on the sofa in the living room in my old family house. It was very dark but I felt somebody entered the room. I got up and saw the silhouette of a 4 years old girl in a healthy shape, wearing a dress and the upper half of her all white thick hair was tied upward in a ponytail. I felt afraid and asked her: Who are you? She did not answer but stared at me and did not seem a bit afraid. I repeated the question when she moved in a calm confident way to switch the light on. At the same moment I realized that there were figures of other strangers sleeping in the same room started to move. I felt panicked and kept screaming: who are you, who are you, who are you until I waked up.

A very old woman introduced herself to me as a fortune teller. I gave her my palm to read and she noticed that the lines in my palm made the shape of a circle and that meant a happy coming stage of life. Then she gazed more and said with a sarcastic look: No, I can not say what I see now. I asked her what she meant but she declined to reveal, always with a sarcastic look in her wrinkled face.

Naked

2010-08-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

After my mother passed away we found out that she used to write, for few years, her diary. It came as a surprise because she was not known for her interest in that form of self expression, but when I think of it now I find it normal for an introvert person like her, and me, to find solace in turning feelings and ideas into written words than spoken ones.

My sisters found it interesting to read what she wrote about our late father and about us. I also feel the temptation to read the diary but I am not comfortable with the idea. It is like breaking her privacy. If she liked us to read it in her life, she could have let us do or at least know about it, but now we can never know if she liked or disliked us to read her diary.

For many years I also kept a diary. I do not think I would like a family member to read it, not because there is specifically anything that I do not want them to read, but simply it is like being seen naked by a family member, nothing wrong with it but it creates an awkward atmosphere. More awkward than being seen naked by a stranger. Revealing, the body or the soul, is usually easier in front of the strangers.

According to my sisters, one small part of the diary contained advices given to us. This was obviously meant to be read by us, but I think when she talked about her relation with our father or her feelings towards certain events along the relevant years better be kept for grandsons and granddaughters or great grandsons and daughters in the future to read. They will be by then strangers, total strangers no problem getting naked in their company.

July and August in all their glory

2010-08-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Home, sweet old tired home.
Family and friends' faces reflecting how old I grew.
Dusty carton boxes filled with photos, books and rusty memories.
Ground zero of my cradle.
The joy and suffering of searching for a new house.
A forcing fake sigh whenever I say: Yes, I was homesick.
Taste is a sort of fate I can never run away from.
Oceans of gaps.
Easily discarding what I always thought undiscardable.
Hypnotized and thinking unhypnotizable.
Everybody is asking why I lost weight although the scales don't show an ounce of weight loss.
The passing away of my favourit and terribly underestimated poet.
Surprising inability to forgive.
First time to witness the entire cycle of Karma.

The beginning

2010-07-20T04:46:00.000-07:00

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."
Louis L'Amour

Dream (July 17th, 2010)

2010-07-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

Was it a celebration of some kind? In some park? I did not know, but there were long and long tables with a variety of delicious food and festivity atmosphere. I walked between the tables and choose whatever I liked to eat even when I did not feel really hungry.

Then I was in my parents' old house. People were gathering just outside the entrance door. There were small lamps shining in different colours but it was still dim though. We were waiting for a fortune teller to arrive. The entrance door of the house was wide open. An old guy from the crowd asked a little girl to go inside the house and open a very old small window or door made of wood. The door was a sliding one and when she slid it open, we found that another wood door was still closed behind. She slid the second door open. We could see palms and tress from that window. I stepped inside the house and looked at that window and it seemed more like a screen. I said to myself that it was on that screen we could see our future, not like the other people outside waiting for the fortune teller. I looked at the screen/window and saw my image wearing a flowers wreath around my neck (lei) and people were congratulating me and I looked thrilled.

I invited the people outside the house to come over clarifying that the future can be known through this window/screen but nobody seemed to care about what I said. They were still standing out waiting for their fortune teller to come.

Wheels

2010-07-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

I do not know why Paris seemed less romantic in my eyes, in my very recent visit after an absence of more than 10 years, compared to how I always felt about the city in the past. It might be the age that let us see things as they are (or maybe in this case uglier than how they are). It could also be the hectic schedule of the visit that did not allow for slow contemplating walks on the banks of the seine and these walks, in my previous visits, used to be the best Paris could offer. Or simply this feeling of the lack of romantic touch might mean I could finally release myself from the fact that it was in Paris, many years ago, where my heart beat hard for what seemed to be, back then, an eternal flame.

Dream (June 12, 2010)

2010-06-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

I was driving a right side steering wheel car and when I looked in the rear mirror I found a very fat beige Persian cat sitting in the backseat staring at me. I dislike cats and wondered how she could get into my car. A feeling of discomfort and annoyance prevailed. Looking at the right side mirror I saw her looking from the window and I thought if I opened the window she might drop out, so I did, but then I saw her in the left side mirror looking from the left window and I opened that window as well and accelerated the speed.
The cat seemed to have disappeared. I closed the windows to find out in the rear mirror that she was still there in the backseat staring at me with her fat peaceful face.
I panicked and moved down my body in the driving seat in order to avoid her possible attack. I had to find a way to get ride of the cat… the damn fat cat.

Dream (May 3, 2010)

2010-05-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

My friends gave me a tambourine (riq) and said we would participate together as a band in a competition.
We went up the stage and the vocal started to sing and the music to play when I noticed that my riq had no jingles, and it did not make any sound no matter how hard I tried to strike it. It was like switching the mute button on. It was then on the stage that I realized I lacked the skill to play or even to correctly hold the instrument.
I felt ashamed of being the reason of the failure of our performance, and started to ask myself why we did not rehearse before and even how I accepted to be a member of the band without having the necessary skills to play the riq.
I went with a friend, who was also a member of the band, to someone to fix the instrument. We passed through a garden on our way and I kept apologizing to him for my mute broken riq.

Dream (April 27, 2010)

2010-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

I was in a spacious room with big glass windows overlooking the sea. Weather became stormy. High tide and big waves reached the windows. I looked around and said to the others in the room:
- Look, this is what always happens in my dreams.

Dream (April 17, 2010)

2010-04-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

There was an old palace open to the public visitors.
The palace was beautiful with big terraces, but in a rundown condition with dark hallways and broken glass windows. I ran into friends and acquaintances. S was an old friend who did not change a bit. He was still radiant and spontaneous as he used to be. H was my sister's friend. She also looked as she used to look 20 years ago. I was surprised to see her alone without her husband and four kids. And I also met B (I have just met B few days ago in a professional gathering)

Both S and B gave me two different pieces of clothes. Shirt and trousers.
I visited the palace again looking for S or B to give back the clothes. I felt it was my responsibility to return them but I walked alone in the hallways and there were very few people.

I only found H and we went together to one of the terraces. It was spacious and beautiful but the railing was broken. I looked around and felt happy and joyful and told H: Where can we find such beauty anywhere else? I looked at the broken railing and said to myself: Even this doesn't matter.

The key

2010-04-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

After a hundred years
Nobody knows the place,--
Agony, that enacted there,
Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,
Strangers strolled and spelled
At the lone orthography
Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields
Recollect the way,--
Instinct picking up the key
Dropped by memory.

Emily Dickinson

Young, Happy and Dead

2010-04-03T00:26:00.000-07:00

Painter: Morteza Katouzian

I knew him in 1998. He unexpectedly died from a brain stroke while walking in the street in 2001. He was 37 years old, married with one kid and he had an impressive path of changing careers.

What I remember most about him is when he said, while we were sipping our coffee some afternoon, that throughout his 4 year pre-marriage relationship and 6 year marriage, he never had a fight with his girlfriend/wife.

Superstitious as I was/am, I felt my heart sank at hearing him. It was never a tradition in my family to brag about being happy. Happiness seemed like a sin/bad omen the moment someone thought to utter the word.

I do not remember I met anyone who was as satisfied with his significant other and with his life as that friend was.

It is strange that the two friends of mine, whom I considered really lucky, passed away young.

In high school I had a close friend who seemed to miraculously get away with every wrong doing. When I heard later about his drowning in a lake, I felt ashamed of myself.

It was not only like admitting being happy was a bad omen, but even thinking that someone else was happy, I felt back then, was also a bad omen.

The Adoring Rock

2010-03-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

The wandering is over,
and the road
is an adoring rock.
Here we are,
burying the corps of the day,
draped in the winds of tragedy.
But tomorrow we shall shake
the trunks of the forest of palms.
And tomorrow we shall wash
the body of the slender god
with the blood of the thunderbolt,
and construct the tenuous lines
between our eyelids and the road.

Adonis
Translated by Kamal Abou Deeb

Recurring Dreams

2010-03-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

- I fly. I am overjoyed that I can fly. I fly over vast distances in seconds. Who said flying is impossible? I can fly.

- The toilet is full and dirty. I try to flush it down but there is something wrong. It is blocked and the dirt is coming up and flooding the floor. I am really disgusted and scared, but strangely somehow, dirt does not touch my feet.

- I have to go somewhere, but there is a problem, and sometimes a chain of problems that impedes me from going to where I'd like to go.

In The Army Then (2)

2010-03-09T23:42:00.000-08:00

I spent one week in a jail. Well, it was not the jail as it was/is commonly known, but it was the jail of the military base. I broke some rule, but let us skip the details here.

The experience was not a Midnight Express-esque as I thought. It was more like what a group of illegal immigrants would face nowadays in their journey to a promised land. We were more than 20 persons living in one big room where we were not allowed to go out unless instructed. So we basically had nothing to do except eating, talking, fighting and suffering from lack of personal space.

M, a close friend of mine and my accomplice in the "crime", was a big source of consolation. He was one of the persons who could see a hidden funny side in every story. Chubby naivety iced with sense of humour. That was him.

Two incidents remained distinctive from that week: once, M waked me up in the middle of the night to ask if I smelt a hash cigarette. We wondered how any of the inmates could get it inside. The other memory was when one of the mates had diarrhea and could not control himself before we called the guards over to open the cell.

At the end of the week the situation became unbearable even with M's jokes, new interesting acquaintances and our non-stop laughs when, every night and immediately after the lights turned off, that rough looking guy started jokingly his show by imitating a female voice and calling every guy in the cell by name and citing what he would like that guy to do to him!

Dream (March 8, 2010)

2010-03-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

Few electric wires came out of my head skin. I pulled them totally and smoothly out without feeling pain or getting wounded. I was told by someone that these wires were inserted in my skull in order to spy on what I was thinking of.

A bunch of new wires came out again from a different spot in my head. I pulled them all out too.

Despite the bizarre look of the wires coming out slowly from my head, it did not scare me. I felt like doing a normal procedure pulling them out.

Sigh

2010-02-28T00:59:00.000-08:00

In the past I always thought if someday my mother passed away, I would regularly visit her grave and talk to her. I could not imagine, at the time, I would be able to stay weeks, not to say months or years, without talking to her even if it was a one way conversation. My mother had gone for few years now and my visits to her grave got less and less. It is not only because I live abroad but even when I go back home, I do not visit her. And the idea of talking to her now seems to me odd.

I used to dream of her a lot in the first year after she left, and some of these dreams were so vivid that I waked up emotionally satisfied that I saw her and she seemed fine. No dreams anymore.

I immensely miss her and miss what she represented in my life but I am aware now, after 8 years of her absence, that she is and will forever be far far away. All what remain are a blurry smiling face, faded warmth of a hug and increasing acceptance of the loss.

Dream (Sunday, February 15, 2010)

2010-02-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

I grilled two odorless fish and I chopped the garlic to prepare the sauce. It took long time to grill and there were persons watching me. At the end, the fish did not look tasty. I wrapped them in a foil paper although I was not quite sure that they were already well cooked.

The Usual Frame

2010-02-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

I waked up this morning and a song kept flashing in my mind for no apparent reason. The first thing I did when I arrived at the office was to play it on youtube. Old memory? Maybe. It is ABBA's the day before you came.

Dream (Friday, 12/2/ 2010)

2010-02-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

T was at the airport carrying two suitcases and running late to catch the plane. I also ran to keep pace with him. Then he decided to abandon one of his suitcases because it would be easier to quicken the pace. As I was surprised by this decision, he explained that the suitcase did not contain important stuff except some cheese.

T disappeared in the crowd and I assumed he has already caught the plane, and I thought of going back to pick up the suitcase. The hall was empty except for a cleaning worker who finished his job although the floor was not quite proper. I tried to draw his attention in order to ask him about the lost suitcase but in vain. He walked away and I followed him until he entered an office and disappeared. I entered the same office and asked a uniformed staff about the lost luggage. The staff clarified that the lost and found office was located outside the airport. I argued about the impracticality of the location but the officer apathetically answered that that was it.

I thought that there must be a way to find the suitcase, but then I told myself it might not be that important because after all it was T who abandoned it.

Epcot Center, Florida, 1994

2010-02-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

It is not usually very uncommon that someone tells me he/she knows an acquaintance or a friend who looks like me (I guess it is due to my "standard" look) but to see someone who really looked like me was a different feeling.
It happened once in a faraway city. A face just flashed for seconds in the crowd and I felt like looking in the mirror. One hour later I ran into the same person in a restaurant and asked my company to look and tell me what he saw. My friend replied: God, he looks exactly like you.
I felt a strange intimacy and resisted an urge to go and talk to him or at least to keep carefully looking at him.

Saturday's dream

2010-02-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

I was completely naked in a busy street trying to hail a taxi cab. Nobody seemed to notice. A blondish smiley woman carrying a child tried also to hail a cab. She started, in a friendly way and a foreign dialect, to strike up a conversation. She said that she liked to do shopping especially buying handicrafts. I repeated what she said but instead of saying "handicrafts", I used the French word "artisanat". We found out that we wanted to go to the same place and decided to share a cab. A pistachio colored 1950s 2 door cab stopped. I ran to ride but the driver drove away. I turned around to look for the woman but she disappeared. I thought she might have taken a cab alone, and felt disappointed at her loss.

I then found myself in an underground metro station only wearing a large loose shirt. A man in his 50s with a big white moustache stood close. He had reddish skin and I guessed he must have been drunk. The man seemed friendly and kept looking at me. A female friend of his joined him and they argued about something I could not comprehend. He turned his head every now and then to look at me and smile. There was some sort of an inexplicable spark between us.

In the Army Then

2010-02-06T02:25:00.000-08:00

It was our first lengthy talk. We briefly ran into each other before and exchanged few words, but that evening amid dozens of other recruits in the military base, we had the opportunity to talk about everything and anything. I do not know how the talk took us to the musical styles we preferred, but when I mentioned the name of my favorite singer, P seemed surprised. He said it was difficult for him to catch the lyrics of her songs because they were in a different dialect. I commented it was a matter of time and if we listened carefully, we could understand the words. P asked if I knew the lyrics of a certain mellow song that he loved without understanding the meaning. I explained it and added jokingly that I could even sing it. P was impressed and complimented me for my voice and singing skills. I thought he was sarcastic because my voice, husky as I have ever been told, had never been a singing material. P seemed honest though. He even asked me to sing it again.

It was a bit strange. In the recreational hall of the military base (where we were both performing our military service) and while dozens of other shaved head guys were shouting, talking, fighting, swearing or whatever, there were the two of us, in some corner, having our own live singing show.

Care to eat something, son?

2010-01-30T03:29:00.000-08:00

T had a rugged ugly face and hard rock body. He was given an addressee in a seedy neighborhood where he would go up to the third floor of a decadent building. The visit should be between 10 and 11 a.m. on certain days of the week. He was told by a friend to be careful and keep it quiet. A fiftyish woman would open the door and take him in silence inside the apartment where they could have sex. The woman was a widow with grown up son and daughter who should be in their universities at the time.

T did as he was instructed. He found the widow, who was wearing a pajama, more unattractive than he thought. She took him by hand to the hallway and started to pull her pants down. When he asked her if they could do it in bed, she coldly replied that if they went to the bedroom, they had to close the windows' shutters and that would attract the attention of her nosy neighbours.

It took around 10 minutes. He felt pain in his knees because they were standing up and she was shorter than him.

That was it? I asked.

T answered me: No, the only words she uttered in a soulless voice after we finished and while I was adjusting myself: Care to eat something, son? I said no and hurried my way down to the street.

Yesterday's dream

2010-01-23T23:30:00.000-08:00

Epidemic was spreading in the city and the authority tried to control the traffic and the movement of people. I was in my home/family home when I had a sudden desire to visit my sister who lived on the other side of the city. Doors and windows were sealed from inside with a big X shaped sellotape by the government as part of the procedures taken against the epidemic, but finally I found a way out to the street.

Streets were chaotic and many roads were closed. I had to take the accessible open roads although they were far from my sister's home. I felt like being taken away from where I should go. I reached narrow alleys in an old and popular neighborhood. I asked a shop owner standing in front of his shop about the direction to AL Street. He pointed at a different direction saying that that was the only open way.

I arrived at a big area looked like a railway station. It was divided into two sections. One of them was fully blocked by women wearing black from head to toe. They also carryied big black sheets (like flags). The other division was blocked by military soldiers in their khaki/brownish uniforms.

Suddenly I wondered what if, after all the trouble I went through, I did not find my sister at her home. What if she has already left to come to stay with us at our house? A wave of panic took me over at the idea of being alone and helpless in my sister's home. A nostalgic and desperate feeling emerged and I longed to go back home. My home, my family home. Nothing else really mattered more than going back home.

Two dreams

2010-01-06T01:20:00.000-08:00

* It was in Paris busy streets. I wore a t-shirt and shorts but everybody wore heavy winter clothes. It was windy and I was afraid of catching cold. I heard my name mentioned and turned around to find an old friend of mine with a fortyish lady (tall and big). He introduced her to me and asked us to talk business. I was distracted because I noticed a pile of coats thrown in the street. I left my friend and the lady and hurried to search the pile. I found 3 lost pieces of my clothes (old green raincoat, denim and gray sweater). They were clean and wrinkled like they have been just washed. I first doubted that the sweater belonged to me, but when I found an old mark on it, I realized it was mine. I went back to my friend and the lady holding the 3 pieces, but by then I felt really disinterested about them.

* I came back home and just before opening the door, I noticed someone trying to break in from the kitchen window. He saw me and started to run away in the garden. The garden had a big banana tree. It was easy to catch him before he tried to jump over the fence. It was as if he did not bother to resist. It seemed that he had an accomplice waiting somewhere. The accomplice ran away. I started to feel a bit compassionate because the guy looked young with an innocent face. I handed him over to the cops though and they took him away in a bus. After their departure, I had ambiguous mixed feelings of remorse, compassion and dsappointment.

Scenario

2009-12-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

1- They set up a hypothetical scenario.
2- They squeeze the facts in order to fit the scenario.
3- They interpret any following action according to the scenario.
4- They predict the future actions that will validate the scenario.
5- Now they believe that the scenario is the only god-made reality.

Words

2009-12-21T04:09:00.000-08:00

Why do we fear words
When among them are words like unseen bells,
Whose echo announces in our troubled lives
The coming of a period of enchanted dawn,
Drenched in love, and life?
So why do we fear words?

We took pleasure in silence.
We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.
We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,
Crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.
We shackled the thirsty letters,
We forbade them to spread the night for us
As a cushion, dripping with music, dreams
And warm cups.

Nazik Almalaika
Translated by Rebecca Carol Johnson

The farthest my memory could go…

2009-12-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

A foggy scene where I sat on huge stairs. A black lady was sitting next to me. We were talking or playing.

When I asked my parents about it, it turned out that I was less than 4 years old and we were in a sea resort. The lady was my nanny. She was, according to what they said, my closest and dearest person at that age. It is strange that that was the only memory I had of her.

Nostalgia

2009-12-17T03:59:00.000-08:00

I miss receiving a personal letter by mail. Or a postcard (no envelope) of some landmark in a foreign city sent by a friend with few words about his impressions and best wishes.

....

2009-12-16T01:31:00.000-08:00

Green Roof

2009-12-15T22:25:00.000-08:00

Flash memory...

At those days, a carpenter would go to a client's house for one or two weeks to do a job.
We had a carpenter doing some business at our home. He worked in a separate room on the roof of the house. "A" was dark, bald, fifty something and a smoker with brownish teeth. His unbuttoned working shirt and his trousers were always stained with spots of paint and wood glue. I used to stay with him from the morning until late afternoon watching him work. It must have been summer.
We developed a friendship (or what a 7 or 8 years old kid would qualify as a friendship). He once built a small wooden house and painted the roof in a bright green color and gave it to me as a present.
One day A had a fight with my father. I do not remember the reason but it was something related to the job he was doing. He left that day and never came back. He even left his tools case. And the cupboard, he was making, remained unfinished. I kept the green roof house in my room. It was slightly bigger than a shoes box. Later I used to put tiny toys inside so the house would feel like a real home.

Dream

2009-12-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

I ran into this old friend of mine while he was jogging, in full dress, in a park. I haven't contacted him for many years and I was surprised to find him here since he lives in the States. He looked much more youthful than he was supposed to look and his head was full of hair. He did not recognize me at the beginning and when he did, he did not seem surprised. He was smiley and joyful. When I asked him about the reason he left New York. He answered something about the huge salary he gets here.

Homeless

2009-12-12T03:23:00.000-08:00

It is getting serious now it seems. Two policemen rang my bell few days ago saying that neighbors complained about my dog being free in the street scaring their kids. They added that the dog caused disturbance by barking all night. I told them what I have told the neighbors before that the dog was not mine per se. I found him homeless and in a miserable condition. I started to give him food, and since the gate of my house was not closed all the time, he used to go in and out freely. It was the neighbors' kids who used to throw stones at him and if they just let him alone he wouldn't bark or make noise. The policemen did not seem convinced and gave me two options, either I took full responsibility of the dog not letting him unleashed out in the street or they would order the relevant authority to take him away (and I guess this meant putting him down).

Now I am in a dilemma. I have no time to fully adopt him and I can not just let him be taken and killed.

The one and only SPCA-like entity here does not accept homeless pets anymore. It already has enough. And the vets are full of ads of dogs seeking adoptive families. On top of all, the society here is not very friendly to pets in general and dogs in particular. I don't know what should I do.

Sometimes

2009-12-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

I watched a movie on TV yesterday about someone whose life was a constant fight to attain his goals. After the end I wondered for the zillionth time if I was the fighting spirit sort of person. I really do not know, but I do ont think that I am the person who would be persistent in achieving goals, or the one who would stumble many times but has the energy and courage to stand up every time and try once again. It is strange that we do not know sometimes what we are capable or incapable of, even when it comes to a basic trait of character. When I look back at my life I find that my objectives were rather acheivable. Or maybe I did not seek, in the first place, very difficult challenges. So the answer to the question is still hanging in the air. Sometimes I wish I knew the answer, and sometimes I just enjoy the luxury of not needing to know the answer.

One minute

2009-12-07T00:11:00.000-08:00

It is a crazy day, but just to find one minute amid all the hustle to talk to myself (through this blog)is a bit relaxing.

Sweet and Sour

2009-12-06T05:10:00.000-08:00

Someone I know is very nice to me and very nasty with the others. How should I feel about him? The two facts (being nice and nasty at the same time) make it difficult for me to set a clear picture of him in my mind. I can't overlook what I see, and I can't neutralize my feelings. He might have his reasons for being such a sweet and sour person but these reasons, in both cases, are beyond my understanding.

Maybe someday he will change the way he treats others or probably the way he treats me. I will see.

Dreams

2009-12-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

• I was running to nowhere holding between my arms the newly born baby girl of my colleague. I felt happy though. The girl was prettier than how she really is.

• I was sitting somewhere outdoor. A lot of mosquitoes were coming and going around. I was irritated and felt uncomfortable. A cloud of helplessness was there somewhere.

• I was visiting my close friend at his home. It was different from the home I know. He and his wife were proudly showing me the design and furniture. I did not like the tacky taste but I was too polite to express my view. Then I realized that their kids were there in the same room but I forgot to greet them. I said to myself that it was embarrassing too to forget to shake hands with the kids. While showing me the house I found that some decorations and furniture were made of cartoon. I said to myself how strange that was, but I had to pay a compliment saying that cartoon was more practical.

It is so quiet

2009-11-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

I have to get my hair cut. I get it cut now almost once every 3 weeks. I used to let at least 2 months pass before visiting the barber shop, but now I prefer this shorter hair/classic look on me. It is image boosting at my age to have a head full of hair although I find being bald on certain guys is quite appealing too. I am not sure if the shop is open today since it is still a national holiday. I will go check and see if my silent serious barber is there or not.

The gym is closed. It sucks. In a long national holiday what should we do if the gym is closed? Not much I am afraid. Well, maybe jogging on the beach in this nice weather will make up for the lack of a hard sweaty gym session. Unlike most of the people I loose weight if I keep away from the gym for a while. And since I am in a good shape, loosing weight does not sound a good idea as it is for 99.9% of the people I know and hear or read about. Yep, I know it sounds cruel!

After midnight

2009-11-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

"I would rather go mad with the truth than remain sane with lies". This is Bertrand Russell's. For long I believed in that saying but recently I am not quite sure that I still hold on to it. Or I should say that I would still believe in it if I found out (or thought) that the truth was not that maddening. Or I would still believe in it if I knew that the truth was unobtainable, and hence I would sound like a great truth seeker if I kept, with a solemn face, reiterating the saying. Or...well, never mind.

Absurd

2009-11-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

- So now what?
- What?
- Don't you want to say something?
- What should I say?
- Don't be silly.
- I really don't understand what you mean.
- Well, as long as you play fool, I say it straight. Don't you want us to do now again what we have done yesterday?
- I love to.
- Ok, let's go.

Morteza again

2009-11-25T03:37:00.000-08:00

The Ha Ha

2009-11-25T03:33:00.000-08:00

I was talking few days ago with a friend about one of my favorite novels of all times. The Ha Ha by Jennifer Dawson. I had a story with this novel. When I was a teenager I used to buy secondhand books from a permanent famous street fair. It was a happy occasion at that tender age to ride, nearly once a month, the bus all alone and go to downtown. I used to search books without having a clear idea what I was exactly looking for. The choice was random. Titles or cover design would attract me to buy the books. And this is how I got to read The Ha Ha in its translated version.

The novel captured me from the first reading. Back then (before the internet era) I couldn't know anything about the novelist except her name and her British identity. It was more than 15 years later that I could buy the original version in a secondhand books (again) e-store.

Events were narrated by a schizophrenic patient in a mental institution without the usual exaggeration and clichés. While the heroine told us, in a very simple and straightforward way, about life, friends, colleagues and workers in the hospital, she let us indirectly see how "outcast" she is in the eyes of those who were around her. We see how normal she was in her own eyes and how "abnormal" in the others' eyes.

Wonderful novel that I read almost once every two years.

Travel

2009-11-24T00:56:00.000-08:00

These are crazy days. We have to finish a lot of stuff at work before the holiday that starts next week. I do not think I am going to take any day off though. So here it is again, another working holiday.

I haven't taken any real holiday since July 2008. I got really fed up with the work conditions, the heat (although weather is getting remarkably better now) and the monotonous rhythm.

As I always suffered from an intensive case of daydreaming since I was a child, I find now that it is my only resort. I just stop doing what I should do at the office, I plug off and I start a 5 minutes trip of daydreaming. It is mostly focused (besides sexual fanasies..ha) on going on a vacation.

In old better days I used to travel everywhere. No continent I haven't been to. Travel was/is one my real passions, so to be unable to move for almost 2 years is not really me.

Well, let me be more positive and start some plan for a January vacation when everybody comes back from their vacations and air tickets fare get less cruel.

Lunch break

2009-11-23T03:51:00.001-08:00

* Someone I know keeps talking about ghosts and haunted places. He has no embarrassment talking about it in the presence of people who do not believe in such things. They look at him with serious faces but I can easily imagine what they are thinking of while he enthusiastically tells his unbelievably strange stories and so called experiences. Delusion is bliss.

* A guy I used to know had ended his long term relationship and just few months later he got into another long term relationship (and they have been together for more than 3 years now). Another friend is dying to settle down and get married/partnered or whatever. Some people are really lucky when it comes to heart matters. It does not matter how nice/warm/pleasant/serious/hot one can be. Some of us still can not find the other half despite all the good intentions, deeds or looks.

* A colleague at work repeated yesterday again that she envied me for my calmness. I adjusted the calm mask tightly on my face, smiled and replied shyly while looking downward: Thank you.

* I watched Chaz Bono on GMA. Goodness, I immediately pictured Cher with all her glamour! Chaz' voice really changed and her body ballooned. She completed the transformation phase and ready now for the big leap. He said that gender is what between the ears not what between the legs. I don't know, but I couldn't fully "digest" that though.

T & J

2009-11-22T01:43:00.000-08:00

I met T yesterday. We agreed to meet at an Italian restaurant we have been to before in his last visit. It is always nice and heart warming to see T and to talk to him. A close friendship that I really cherish.

I wondered what I should wear. Should I go for the athletic/muscular look with a fit T-shirt and jeans? Or a more classic stuff like a long sleeved shirt and khaki trousers? Then I preferred something in between with a fit polo shirt and casual blue trousers. I arrived early and stayed in the car listening to the music until time was up.

He came with his friend J. It was my first time to see J, although I have been hearing about him since forever. He looked as I have expected. Tall and blond with that known Nordic allure.

It lasted more than 3 hours. We talked about everything work, families, old friends, and memories. Surprisingly (to myself) I have been open and talkative the whole time although I am usually on the shy side particularly when I meet people for the first time. But I guess when we feel relaxed, matters sometimes take another track.

Food was fine. I ordered Mediterranean salad and sparkling water because I have had a big late lunch. J asked if I usually ate that healthy. The answer was negative.

They are leaving today. Alas it was too short.

Morteza

2009-11-21T02:17:00.000-08:00

I like many of Morteza Katouzian's paintings. I amn't an expert, but his works just move something inside me.

Yea, that's true!

2009-11-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic."

That was an anonymous post in a discussion forum about the sort of sayings given by fortune tellers that seem true but applies, at the same time, on so many people.

Brilliant!

T

2009-11-17T23:33:00.000-08:00

T will be visiting town for the coming few days. He is an old friend and one of the rare persons I feel very comfortable to be with and to talk to. It is amazing how only one person can color your views on a whole people! Immature, I know, but I can not really neutralize my feelings towards the Nordic people my friend T belongs to. Stereotype much? Yes, but at least it is a positive one.

Here we go again

2009-11-17T00:44:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking lately about my 2010 wish list. Well, as if my 2009 list got anything to do with what I have already witnessed. Nevertheless, just thinking of what I wish 2010 might bring to me, gives me sort of comfort.

Some 2009 wishes would automatically move to the new list (and maybe to the next 10 or 20 yearly lists). Those that dealing with health, happiness, love etc. The more practical and professional wishes are those that vary from a year to another.

Well.. I will prepare the list, print it out, put in an envelope, address to someone up there and wait to see how much would he contribute to their achievement.